


Now and Then

by Argyle



Category: Good Omens
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-23
Updated: 2006-06-23
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12943581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: Where there's a will, there's a way.





	Now and Then

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the two_of_us_fic Beatles lyrics challenge. My lyrics were "And if you say the word, I could stay with you / I can be handy, mending a fuse when your lights have gone" from "When I'm Sixty-Four."

What could be more relaxing than a week-long camping holiday?

While Anathema hadn’t explicitly posed such a question, it lurked round the corner of all of Newt’s best attempts at preparing himself for such a trip.

They packed a tent, yes, as well as pots and pans, utensils, unprocessed food products, and several suitcases full of clean clothes, but when Newt had gaped longingly at the electric stove with double burners and easy-clean surfaces that had been advertised in a glossy catalogue whose primary clients were rough action hero types, Anathema had given him _the look_. She also dropped into his rucksack a tinderbox of the sort that would have made even old Thou-Shall-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer proud, and that was the end of it.

“But won’t it be wonderful to get away from it all for a while?”

“What exactly are we getting away from? I thought we were settling in nicely.”

“That isn’t the point, Newt.”

Indeed, Newt later learned, it seemed that the point had something to do with protesting the near extermination of indigenous Hertfordshire wildlife by Sparrow, Starling, Magpie, and Smith Construction, a company which claimed to build on-demand luxury housing at affordable prices and little to no expenditure of creativity.

Newt cared about the wildlife because Anathema cared about it, which is to say: quite a bit. In fact, she cared about wildlife more than ever before, for book of prophecies or no, the end results of the Status Quo were as clear to her as an emissions-free skyline.

And so they packed the car and drove to the site, pamphlets in hand and ire on mind, but nothing could have prepared Newt for what was to come, which is to say: nothing.

Anathema pulled down a placard that had been tacked to a tree. “I can’t believe it,” she said, and her hand trembled slightly as she handed it over to Newt. “They’ve signed a last minute bargain with the construction company.”

“Isn’t that the best we could have hoped for?” asked Newt.

“No. It isn’t,” she said. “Of course it isn’t.”

“Oh?”

“The company could have -- _should_ have -- completely relinquished claim to the area. This area _must_ remain as an open space in which wildlife might flourish.”

“Oh.” Although Newt was not even familiar with the abridged version of Darwin [1], he tried to imagine such an amazing feat of choreographed physics, placing it between the building of the pyramids and the formation of the sun, and could not.

“How could they do this? How could they even _consider_ it? The loss of the minnows alone may cause... Well, the potential consequences are immeasurable.”

“This is dated three weeks ago.”

Anathema nodded. “You’d think my group would have been kind enough to ring me.”

“Too busy being entertained by Messrs Sparrow, Starling, Magpie, and Smith, I expect. It’s all soirées and champagne and _foie gras_ now they’ve gained a corporate patron.”

Anathema let it pass. “Well, we oughtn’t just stand about now we’ve come all this way,” she said, suddenly plucking the notice back out of Newt’s hands. She stared down at it for a moment, and then clenched her teeth as she crumpled it into a neat ball. A moment passed. She smoothed it out again and set it onto Dick Turpin’s dashboard. “When the Sparrow, Starling, Magpie, and Smith Construction Company rolls over the horizon tomorrow morning and tries to begin reaping their carnage upon the land, we’ll be waiting for them. Come on! It’s always best to have things set up before nightfall.”

\------------------

Anathema was correct in this, but the comment should have been further appended to contain a certain stipulation in regard to the rain.

It came quite gently at first: Newt had never seen a drizzle so quiet as to almost be the caress of some unseen hand upon the landscape. He and Anathema watched it from behind the zippered screen of their lopsided tent; the bedding was rather more comfortable than he had at first supposed it would be, and he contentedly admitted that in that moment, _nothing_ was more relaxing than a camping holiday. He slept, and was happy until he was awoken by the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder.

The rain picked up momentum, and the wind came with it.

And then it would not stop.

It rained solidly and sternly through the night, at last jumping the hurdle to rain into the morning without so much as a second thought cast in the direction of breakfast.

Newt was not so strong.

It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ beans, but rather that boiled limas and kidneys and pintos and ghastly green giants failed to match his basic understanding of them. Beans were something to be poured out of a red and white can and served with thick buttered toast for any meal that fancied them, not various bits of vegetable intent on playing full-contact sports with his lower intestine.

He certainly hadn’t ever aspired to eat three cold bowls of the latter a day for six days straight, and so after his third serving on the second day, he told Anathema as much.

“Well,” she replied, and peered out the front tent-flap, “there’re cans of fruit in the car.”

But somehow the thought of trudging through the downpour for the sake of sliced pineapple didn’t strike him as a worthwhile option. He downed another spoonful of lentils and sighed in a last-ditch attempt at satisfaction.

It was only after their tent developed a rather distressing leak which could not be fixed with the vinyl tape that Newt may or may not have forgotten to pack that they agreed to pack up and go home.

\------------------

On the drive back to Jasmine Cottage, Dick Turpin felt stuffier than it usually did, though this might have been explained by the simple fact that all objects in the universe take up more room after a trip than before it. Also: everything was soaked through to the atoms, and the sharp whiff of early mildew began to waft through the air shortly after they turned onto the motorway.

They made it home in record time.

The weather in Lower Tadfield was utterly clear. Indeed, it may well have been centuries since the last storm had rolled through the village, so kindhearted and flawless were the afternoon environs. Newt smiled and stared up at the surrounding trees. He breathed in the scent of the garden, and that of the quiet road and warmed earth; he sighed deeply and stretched as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, and then made a beeline for the front door, jangling the keys in the palm of his hand as he went.

Anathema cleared her throat. “Newt?”

“Mm?”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Oh,” he said, and smiled. “I should love a hot shower, some dry clothes, and... a sandwich. Maybe even two sandwiches.” And then, after a pause: “Er. After I empty the car.”

“Good,” said Anathema. She pulled out her own keys, turned the lock, and vanished inside.

For several moments, Newt stood quite still. Then he blinked once, twice, pursed his lips, and began to sift through the contents of the boot.

“Hi,” came a youthful voice beside him.

Newt turned round, narrowly avoiding the swift collision of Dick Turpin’s hatch and the back of his head, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

He remembered the boy. Of course he remembered him. He remembered the eyes, bright and earnest and knowing; he remembered the untied laces and the irreverently slouched shoulders. He remembered the scruffy dog that hung round his heels. His name, Newt thought, was Adrian, or perhaps Alec. Not a week before, he had been over to Jasmine Cottage to see Anathema.

“Hullo!” Newt said amiably, and hoisted a duffle bag onto his shoulder.

“Where’re you movin’ to?”

“Oh,” said Anathema as she swept back through the doorway. “We’re just returning. From a camping holiday. How _are_ you, Adam?”

Newt smiled to himself. Adam would have been his next guess.

“Great!” said Adam. “My aunt Ethel visited us from London. She brought me a model airplane to put together.”

“Really? What sort of plane?” asked Newt.

“B-52.”

Newt nodded. _He_ had once put together a B-52. Part of the box had accidentally become glued to the tail, and even his most concentrated attempts at removing it had resulted in a rather less aerodynamically sound craft. “Well,” he said. “Good luck. And if you need some help with the wings, let me know. The wings are always the hardest bits to align correctly.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Adam. He pulled an apple from the depths of his pocket, examined it thoughtfully, and then took a bite. When he spoke again, it was through a mouthful of ripe fruit. “I already finished it. I’ll show you sometime.”

“I’d like that.” Some minutes before, Newt’s posture had begun to sag beneath the weight of the bag, and with a soft gasp he at last let it drop to the ground.

Anathema clicked her tongue. “I hope that’s on its way to the kitchen.”

“Yeah,” Newt agreed. “Of course it is.”

While he took it inside, and then came back to the car for another, Adam began to poke through the tent sack which lay behind the driver’s seat. “How big is it?”

“Well, let’s see.” Newt paused to wipe the sweat from his glasses, then met Adam’s eye. “The instructions said seven by five, but it felt more like three by three.”

“Newt had a little trouble with the side panels,” Anathema chuckled.

“It wasn’t _only_ the panels. I think it was missing some pegs...”

“But that’s plenty of room for Dog an’ me!” Adam tossed his apple core into the bushes, and the dog promptly scurried after it. “It sounds _brilliant_.”

“Hmm,” Anathema said, and smiled. “We’ll let you borrow the tent if you help Newt unpack.”

Adam smiled.

By the time they had finished, it was well after three, and the sun shone down upon them with the sort of sincerity that would have been quite a welcome accomplice to even the most intrepid and seasoned of campers.

“So,” said Newt, when they stood together in the front parlor, catching their breaths. He noticed quite suddenly that there were patches of dirt on either of Adam’s cheeks, across his brow, and down his arms. His shirt was rumpled and streaked with dust and grass stains. His hair was tousled. It was the look of someone who had ridden the back of the wind, but Newt could not escape the memory of the odd days in primary school when he was forced by pain of failure to participate in athletic activities. And of course he had always tried his best. “Is it rugby season already?”

Adam tilted his head. “Eh?”

“Nothing.”

“Well,” Anathema said, raising a pitcher. “How about some sun-brewed chamomile?”

“No, thanks. Already had some at Pepper’s house.” Adam shrugged affably. “I was just wonderin’ how you two were getting along, is all.”

“And it’s remarkably thoughtful of you. Don’t you agree, dear?”

Newt looked up in time to catch her smile. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes.”

“And you’re gettin’ along?” Adam’s eyes drifted here and there, down and along the far wall, past the icebox and beside the bin, and at last lingering on the mound of camping supplies that stood on and around the kitchen table. Newt shared his sentiment: it was going to be a right jolly time putting everything away, especially those things which were still caked with mud [2]. He blinked.

“We are,” she said. And then, taking a long step forward: “Oh, d’you know, that reminds me. This has only just arrived. Why don’t you take it?”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Yeah.” Anathema pushed aside one of the overstuffed rucksacks, and then began to sift through the stack of mail which had, up until that moment, been completely obscured. With a nod, she held forth the latest issue of _New Aquarian Digest_. HARNESS THE HIDDEN WORLD OF ELECTRICITY AND LIVE A FULLER LIFE, its emblazoned headline proclaimed. “Consider it yours.”

Adam grinned. “ _Thanks_ ,” he said.

“But, you’ve not...” Newt trailed off, then cleared his throat. “Could be interesting, you know, hidden worlds and all that.”

“It’s an old story,” said Anathema. “I’m positive I’ve read it before.”

“Oh.”

Adam rolled the magazine into a tube, and then used it to point outside. “We’d better go,” he said. “They’ll be waitin’ for us by now.”

“Did you still want to borrow the tent?” asked Newt.

“Nah.” Adam paused on the threshold to look back at them with a wide, wry grin. “I expect this’ll keep me busy for _hours_. But maybe you can bring it along when you come over tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

He nodded and was gone.

“Very odd boy,” murmured Newt.

After a moment, Anathema said, quite evenly and with circumspect pride, “He wants to save the whales.”

\------------------

“Newt, dear,” called Anathema from the hall. “Don’t you think we ought to get a second opinion?”

“A second opinion?” Newt repeated. He rubbed his hands together, surveying the fuse box by the light of a torch. “Of course not. It’s just a blown fuse. There’s nothing to it. It’s as easy as crumb cake.”

“Yes, but--”

“Ah!”

“Newt?”

“Mm?” Newt sucked the singed tips of his fingers, tossed the broken fuse in the nearby rubbish bin, and pulled a new one from his trouser pocket. He slipped it into place, and thought this: fifth time’s a charm.

Anathema peered round the doorframe, a stitch of worry crossing her candle-lit features. When she spoke, it was clear to him that she had been laughing. “Is everything all right?”

“Mm,” Newt said, and flipped a switch.

There was pop, and then a groan.

The lights didn’t so much as flicker. Newt flipped another switch.

There was a knock upon the door.

“You didn’t _already_ call someone, did you?”

Anathema shook her head. “But now you _mention_ it... Perhaps it would be for the best.”

“Really,” said Newt. He brushed the dust from either cheek, and across his brow. “I know what I’m doing. The only challenge to be had here is working in the dark, and that’s what this is for.” He held up the torch as though it was a beacon of trust and integrity, like Wellington’s sabre or the unifying flame of an Olympic athlete. Perfectly aware of this cue, this one glorious moment in which not to shine, the torch dimmed and went out. Newt shook it. And then his grimace became a rather sheepish smile. “Batteries,” he explained, quite simply.

\------------------

Newt shifted from one foot to the other, feeling oddly underdressed.

“Shh,” said Anathema.

“But I didn’t say anything.”

“I know what you were thinking, and my answer is no: we can’t leave early.”

“But that’s not what--”

“Shh.”

Newt opened his mouth, and then closed it again. There _were_ other things he could be doing. He could go back to the fuse box. Why, in a parallel universe he might be fixing the fuse at this very moment, or having a good go of it at the very least. He knew that fuses did not simply mend themselves.

And he couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about. Of course the kids were nice enough, and the weather was quite clear and mild, but watching a hole being dug in the middle of the village green was not his idea of a well-spent afternoon.

“It’s not the hole we’re worried about,” Adam had said. It was he who knocked on the door to Jasmine Cottage, looking every bit as eager to face this day as he had in regard to the previous one. It was he who helped Newt up from the stoop after Newt had tripped over one of the missing tent pegs and stumbled out from the darkness. He still held the issue of _New Aquarian Digest_ , and by the look of it, the amount of concentration he had poured into its pages easily doubled that of the remainder of the magazine’s total readership.

“Well,” Newt replied, “all on needs is a good shovel and a sturdy back.”

“Dog’s helpin’ us, too, diggin’ and chasin’ the birds away and suchlike. Wouldn’t want him to feel left out.”

“Ah.”

Adam opened the magazine to a marked page. “We’ve already picked a spot for it,” he said. “It’ll be great.”

“‘Contact the people of tomorrow today by building your very own time capsule,’” Newt read aloud. Then he paused. “Time capsule?”

“As I was _sayin_ ’, the hard part won’t be diggin’ the hole, it’ll be finding a box sturdy enough to...” he trailed off, and then looked down at the article. “To withstand the ravages of Time!”

Newt smiled down at the boy, and began to feel that old excitement flickering through his limbs. “Perhaps Anathema has something like that.”

And she did.

“It isn’t much to look at,” she said, setting it down on the garden table. “I’ve always rather fancied it to be more of an apothecary’s chest than anything else. Of course, the paint’s all new, and the latches must’ve been replaced sometime in the last century, but it’s the _form_ of it that charms. See?” Here she ran her fingertips over the arc of the lid, popped the key into the lock, and opened it with a swift turn of her wrist. It smelled of dust, but also of something neither salty nor sweet; it was an acidic tang that lingered in the back of one’s throat until it faded as with the coaxing of the breeze. Inside sat a stack of slightly yellowed paperbacks.

Newt picked one up and read the spine. “ _The Naughtiest Girl in the School_ , eh?”

“Mm,” Anathema cleared her throat, extending her hand. “I’ll take that.”

“Oh, but look at this one: _Preternatural Beings Living Among Us_ ,” he said. And then, glancing at another: “ _The Art of Conversing with Your Dog_. Er. I bet that’s handy. ‘Hullo, old boy, how’s the weather down there, and by golly, have you seen my keys?’”

“Nah,” said Adam. “You don’t need anything like _that_ to talk to ’em. You just have to talk to them like you’d talk to anyone else, and they’ll listen.”

“Oh!” Newt smiled and glanced down at Dog. “Well then, hullo, old boy! Why don’t you fetch us a lovely rabbit to dine on tonight?”

“Newt, _really_ ,” said Anathema.

Newt instinctively dropped his gaze. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, he only listens to me,” Adam said. “And sometimes Pepper.”

Now, Newt intercepted a scowl from the small, plump man in the violet jumper and mint green trousers who had apparently been glued to the pavement on the far side of the green. The expression seemed to contain not only wrath, but also pride and jealousy, and Newt felt his cheeks coloring. He tried to pry his gaze away, but succeeded only in lowering it to instead take in the man’s poodle, which, after it finished relieving itself on the immaculate edge of the lawn, began to kick up grass with its tiny hind legs. He wondered vaguely whether they were members of the circus he had read about in the _Advertiser_.

He cleared his throat, and glanced down at the tent bag which sat by his feet. “They ought to have another parade,” he said offhandedly.

“Hmm?” Anathema looked up.

“Nothing.”

Adam adjusted the tie of his bed sheet cape, and clapped his hands. He did not need to ask for full attention. “And now, on this fifteenth day of August, we present this time capsule to the men of the future--”

“ _Women_ , too,” whispered the red-headed girl who stood at his left. She wore a feather boa, a tunic belted at the waist with a thin metal chain, and a pair of yellow wellies.

“What?”

“My mother said that in a hundred years, women’ll be _more_ important than _men_. On account of the environment’s coming inability to sustain life.”

Newt felt Anathema shift her weight.

“Oh,” said Adam. “I was _getting_ ’ to that, but you _int’rrupted me_.”

“Well, go on, then.”

“We present this time capsule to the men--”

“--and women--”

“--of the future so they’ll know what it was like for us in the past. So they’ll understand what kinds of things they missed out on.” Adam reached into his pocket, and Newt halfway expected him to retrieve another apple. But then again, no: it was a well-worn cricket ball. He held it up before him, and then set it in the box. “I expect they’ll create a hologram from this, or a computer program, an’ they’ll see people playin’ cricket, but there won’t be any place for them to try a game themselves because all the grass’ll be gone, and the sun’ll be too hot to stand beneath for more than a minute.”

“But if they have all that technology,” protested the bespectacled boy to Adam’s right, “why can’t they just make a holographic field?”

Adam scowled. “It wouldn’t be the _same_ , Wensley,” he said. And then: “Pepper, it’s your turn.”

The red-headed girl stepped forward, and held forth a small, glinting object in the palm of her hand. “This is the shilling I left on the railroad track last summer.”

“What’s that got to do with teachin’ people from the future?” asked the boy to Pepper’s side as he straightened his foil gauntlets and cap.

“I already told you, Brian,” she said. “People will want to know about what kind of money we used, and what sorts of things it was good for.”

“Right,” said Brian quietly. After Pepper dropped the squashed shilling piece into the time capsule, he stepped forward and rummaged through his own pockets for a moment before retrieving several empty crisp packets, as well as one that was still sealed. “I give these crisps to the scientists of the future, in case they get hungry while they’re workin’ on findin’ out what we were like.”

Pepper elbowed him in his side.

“And also so they can replicate our delicious food and save starving children in Africa.”

“Good,” said Adam with an approving nod. “Wensleydale?”

Wensleydale murmured something that Newt didn’t catch.

“What was that?”

“Oh.” Wensleydale’s shrug was engulfed by the weight of his oversized jacket. “I don’t have anything.”

“He does,” Pepper exclaimed, and reached past his wide white lapels for the paper bag that had been hidden within. “See?”

Wensleydale grabbed it back from her, pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose, and opened it. “ _Fine_ ,” he said. “I present this newspaper to the people of the future so they’ll know about our government and culture.”

“ _Financial Times_ ,” Anathema whispered disapprovingly into Newt’s ear.

“Oh?” said Newt, tilting his head to get a better view as Wensleydale set it into the box. “I hear their theatre reviews are quite good.”

Adam clapped his hands once more, and there was silence. “And now we’ll listen to a song in honor of the people of the future. Brian, start the tape.”

Brian kneeled down before a small wireless radio, fumbling with its switches, and turned it on. The opening chords of “The 1812 Overture” poured out from it in tinny glory, and continued on until oboe and violin were replaced with the _tick, tap, tock_ of dead air. And then another sound could be heard. It was quiet at first, like the snicker-hiss of air slipping from a bicycle tire, and then it grew louder and louder until a calm, nasal voice cut in, “If, however, we look deeper into the connection between the laws of classical mechanics and these quantum conditions required by our extended experience, we shall discover that the system obtained by their unification suffers from logical inconsistency...”

“My father must’ve taped over it,” Adam said matter-of-factly, but his posture was not without disappointment. He switched off the radio. “What about you two?”

“Us?” Newt asked, and hazarded a swift glance to Anathema. She was smiling broadly.

“There’s nothing like being prepared,” she said, and stepped forward. In her hand was a stack of pamphlets: some were glossy, some were matte, and some were simple sheets of folded copy paper. “I should like to believe that the women and men of the future will be contentious of their surroundings, never wasting natural resources or deliberately disregarding the cries of those around them, but I see nothing wrong with lending a fresh voice to their infinite ethical responsiveness.”

There was a silence.

She dropped the pamphlets into the box, and rejoined Newt on the grass.

“That’s going to be a tough act to follow,” he whispered.

“Thanks, Anathema,” said Adam, soberly. “Er. Mr. Pulsifer?”

“Yes?” Newt looked up to see four sets of eyes on him, four wondering minds and inquisitive smiles.

Dog sniffed, and his tail thumped up and down upon the ground.

“Go on,” Anathema said.

And so Newt went. He didn’t have anything for the time capsule. There wasn’t anything he had to say to the people of the future, or not really: he somehow supposed that it simply wouldn’t be proper to ask them to develop clothes that never needed to be washed, or an escalator which rose up to the moon.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of fuses. They shone like jewels in the afternoon sunlight, and dropped like stones as they fell to the bottom of the box.

“I give these fuses to the people of the future,” he said, “so their lights will never go out.”

Adam grinned. “They’ll appreciate it.”

“I’m sure they will,” said Anathema.

She and Newt watched as Pepper sealed the capsule, and as Brian and Wensleydale lowered it into the hole. Adam smiled upon it with the same pride in the job that a gardener might feel for new seeds, and Dog helped him bury it.

When Newt asked Adam how long he expected it to remain there, he said, “Oh, a thousand years. Maybe more.” And Newt believed him.

Soon the five had departed, agreeing to share the tent amongst them, and Newt and Anathema made their way back to Dick Turpin and then to Jasmine Cottage.

The power was working again.

“Will you look at that,” Newt said in a soft, wondering voice. He flipped the switch on and off, and the lights obeyed. “I guess the fifth time really is a charm.”

Anathema arched a brow. “There’re some things you just can’t question.”

\------------------

[1] It went like this:

      _In the beginning, there was the One,_  
     And He was awed by the Monolith.  
     And He made tools and harnessed fire.  
     And He used fire to smoke tobacco.  
     And He learned to ride a unicycle.  
     And it was good.  
     And he wed Mimi, and begat Pogo,  
     Who begat Sunshine, who begat Sly,  
     Who begat Bean, who begat Biggles,  
     Who begat Mr. Tiny, who begat Sam,  
     Who begat Bonzo, who begat Bozo,  
     Who adopted Loose, who begat Zaius,  
     Who became a wise and respected Doctor  
     And challenged Cornelius’ fiancée Zira  
     In her Belief that all Creatures were  
     Worthy of respect and compassion  
     And that tobacco was bad for the heart.

Darwin, you see, was something of a melancholy drunk.

[2] Namely everything, for if there’s one thing Mother Nature likes to accomplish now and again, it’s a thorough job.

[3] This was not entirely accurate. Dog had thought long and hard about what he might place in the time capsule, and he came very close to selecting one of Mr. Young’s favorite tennis shoes, but such an item would have taken weeks to prepare. If only his Master had given him more time... He shook his head. It wasn’t fair, he thought. But then again, of course it was fair. In the end, he decided upon a nice pheasant he found by the side of the road. It was shapely; it smelled fantastic; it expressed the current state of abundance quite well. It was vetoed by Wensleydale, who feared it would decompose in such a way as to make the capsule completely worthless to future humans, and again by Pepper, who said it was a glaring example of the excesses of consumerist culture and the destruction of nature. Even so, Dog felt that the scientists, enlightened beings that they were, would understand.


End file.
